As you stand on the Piazza dei Signori at Verona, at one side rises
the massive red-brick tower of the Scaliger palace, lofty, castellated
at its top, with here and there a small window, deep set in the old
masonry, and the light that is allowed to pass inwards, grudgingly
crossed by bars of rusty iron--a place of defence and perhaps of
tyranny, within which life is secure indeed, but grim and sombre.
Opposite, in an angle of the square, stands a very different building,
the Palazzo del Consiglio. It has only two storeys, but each of these
is high and airy; above is a fine chamber, through whose ample windows
streams in the sun; below is a pleasant loggia, supported by slender
columns. Marble cornices and balustrades give a sense of richness, and
the wall-spaces are bright with painting and ornament. The spacious
galleries invite to enjoyment, to pace their length in free
light-hearted talk, or to stand and watch the life moving below, with
the sense of gay predominance that the advantage of height confers.
The two buildings typify most aptly the ages to which they belong: the
contrast between them is as the gulf between the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. Step back in thought to the twelfth century, and we find
civilization struggling for its very existence. Few careers were
possible. Above all was the soldier, ruthlessly spreading murder and
desolation, and expecting no mercy when his own turn came; in the
middle were the merchant and the craftsman, relying on strong city
walls and union with their fellows, and the lawyer building up a
system, and profiting when men fell out; underneath was the peasant,
pitiably dependent on others. On all sides was bestial cruelty and
reckless ignorance: the overmastering care of life to find shelter and
protection. How strong, how luxuriously strong seemed that tower, with
so few apertures to admit the enemy and the pursuer! once inside, who
would wish to stir abroad? For the man who would think or study there
was only one way of life, to become sacrosanct in the direct service
of God. The Church, with splendid ideals before it, was exerting
itself to crush barbarism, and its forts were garrisoned by men of
spirit, whose courage was not that of the destroyer. In the
monasteries, if anywhere, was to be found that peace which the world
cannot give, the life of contemplation, in which can be felt the
hunger and thirst after knowledge.
By the middle of the sixteenth century the scene has changed. Much
blood has flowed through the arches of time; and now the conqueror has
learnt from the Church to be merciful, from nascent science to be
strong. He can spread peace wherever his sword reaches; and fear that
of old ruled all under the sun, now can walk only in dark places.
Walls no longer bring comfort, and soon they are to be thrown down to
make way for the broad streets which will carry the movement outwards;
and, most significant change, the country house with 'its gardens and
its gallant walks' takes the place of the grange. From the thraldom of
terror what an escape, to light, air, freedom, activity! The gates of
joy are opened, the private citizen learns to live, to follow choice
not necessity, to give the reins to his spirit and take hold on the
gifts that Nature spreads before him.
In the pursuit of peace, human progress has lain in the enlargement of
the units of government capable of holding together; from villages to
towns, from towns to provinces, from provinces to nations. The last
step had been the achievement of the Middle Ages, though even by the
end of the fifteenth century it was not yet complete: the twentieth
century finds us reaching forward to a new advance. We have spoken of
Erasmus' efforts to bring back peace from her exile, of the
experiences of his youth when Holland had wept for her children. In
1517, when he wrote his 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all
lands', he was a man and one of Charles' councillors; but Holland was
still weeping and refusing comfort. She had good reason. The provinces
of the Netherlands were disunited, no sway imposed upon them with
strength enough first to restrain and then to knit together. On either
side of the Zuider Zee lay two bitter enemies: Holland, which had
accepted the Burgundian yoke, and Friesland, which after a long
struggle against foreign domination, had been reduced by the rule of
Saxon governors, Duke Albert and Duke George. To the south was
Gueldres, which, under its Duke, Charles of Egmont, had thrown in its
lot with France against Burgundy, and was continually instigating the
subjugated Frieslanders to rebellion. Then was war in the gates.
This was the kind of thing that happened. In 1516, after a fresh
outbreak of the ceaseless struggle, Henry of Nassau, Stadhouder of
Holland and Zeeland, ordered that all Gueldrians or Frieslanders who
showed their faces in his dominions should be put to death; and some
who were resident at the Hague were executed on the charge of sending
aid to their compatriots. A raid by the Gueldrians ended in the
massacre of Nieuwpoort. Nassau replied by ravaging the country up to
the walls of Arnhem, the Gueldres capital.
Duke Charles had terrible forces at command. A body of mercenary
troops, known as the Black Band, had been used by George of Saxony for
the repression of Friesland in 1514, and since then had been seeking
employment wherever they could find it. At the same time, one of the
conquered Frieslanders, known as Long Peter, had turned to piracy as
an effective way of revenging himself on Holland. Proclaiming himself
'King of the Sea', he seized every ship that came in his way, showing
no mercy to Hollanders and holding all others to ransom.
In May 1517, the Duke, violating a truce not yet expired, renewed
hostilities. The Black Band, some of whom had strayed as far as Rouen
in quest of fighting, flocked back. At the end of June 3000 of them
crossed the Zuider Zee in Long Peter's ships and disembarked suddenly
at Medemblik, in North Holland. The town was quickly set on fire, and
everything destroyed except the citadel; the fleet carrying back the
first spoils. Then they marched southwards, burning what they list;
and happy were those whose offer of ransom was accepted, to escape
with plunder only.
There was no fixed plan. The murderous horde wandered along, turning
to right or left as fancy suggested. After burning five country towns,
they appeared at Alcmar, the chief town of North Holland, into which
the most precious possessions of the neighbourhood had been hurriedly
conveyed. By a heavy payment, the burghers purchased immunity from the
flames; but for eight days the town was given up to the lust and
ferocity of an uncontrolled soldiery, from whose senseless destruction
it took thirty years to recover. Egmond, with its great abbey, was
pillaged; and then it was Haarlem's turn to suffer. But by this time
resistance had been organized. Troops had been called back from
garrison work in Friesland, and a strong line drawn in front of
Haarlem. Headed off, the Black Band turned suddenly away. Passing
Amsterdam and Culemborg, it penetrated down into South Holland, whence
it would be easy to pass back into Gueldres. Asperen was its next
prey. Three times the citizens beat off the cruel foe: a few more to
man their walls, and they might have driven him right away, to
overwhelm others less fortunate and less brave.
But it was not to be. At the fourth attempt the marauders were
successful, and massacre ensued. Death to the men, worse than death to
the women: nor age nor innocence could touch those black hearts. A
schoolmaster with his boys fled into a church and hid trembling in the
rood-loft. Before long they were discovered. Thirsting for blood, some
of the monsters rushed up the steps and tossed the shrieking victims
over on to the pikes of their comrades below. When all the butchery
was finished, a few helpless and infirm survivors were dragged out of
hiding-places. The miserable creatures were driven out of the city and
the gates barred in their faces. For a month the Black Band held
Asperen as a standing camp, living upon the provisions stored up by
the dead. Then Nassau came with troops and drove them forth, pursuing
into Gueldres, where he burned '46 good villages' in revenge. The
sight of fire blazing to heaven is appalling enough when men are
ranged all on one side, and the battle is with the element alone. Our
peace-lapped imaginations cannot picture the terror of flames kindled
aforethought. As those poor fugitives scattered over the country,
cowering into the darkness out of the fire's searching glow, they
cannot but have recalled the words: 'Woe unto them that are with child
and to them that give suck in those days.' At least they could give
thanks that their flight was not in the winter.
Meanwhile Long Peter had not been idle. On 14 August he had a great
battle with the Hollanders off Hoorn. Eleven ships he took, and cast
their crews into the sea: 500 men, save one, a Gueldrian, struggling
in the calm summer waters and stretching out their hands to a foe who
knew no pity. In September he surrounded a merchant fleet. The
Easterlings escaped at heavy ransom; but the crews of three Holland
vessels were flung to the waves. Then he carried the war on to the
land, to glean what the Black Band had left. With 1200 men he took
Hoorn by escalade; plunder-laden and sated, they returned to the sea.
Nothing was too small or too helpless for his rapacity. Along the
coast they picked up a barge of Enckhuizen. Its only crew, master and
mate, were thrown overboard, and Peter's fleet sailed upon its way. We
must remember that the provinces engaged in this internecine strife
were not widely diverse in race, and that to-day they are peacefully
united under one governance.
The winter of 1517-18 was spent by the Black Band in Friesland. Three
thousand men who are prepared to take by force what is not given to
them, do not lie hungry in the cold. We may be sure that under them
the land had no rest. At Easter they began to move southwards in quest
of other victims and other employ. But as they halted between Venlo
and Roermond, resistance confronted them. Nassau had arrayed by his
side the Archbishop of Cologne and the Dukes of Juliers and Cleves:
the gates of the cities were closed and the ferry-boats that would
have carried them across the Maas had been kept on the other side.
Caught in a trap, the freebooters promised to lay down their weapons
and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the
company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of
which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded
a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led
to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there
was no safety but in flight. A thousand were massacred before Nassau
and his confederates could check their men.
Erasmus was about to set out from Louvain to Basle, to work at a new
edition of the New Testament. Bands such as these were, of course, a
peril to travellers. Half exultant, half disgusted, he wrote to More:
'These fellows were stripped before disbandment: so they will have all
the more excuse for fresh plundering. This is consideration for the
people! They were so hemmed in that not one of them could have
escaped: yet the Dukes were for letting them go scot-free. It was mere
chance that any of them were killed. Fortunately, a man blew his
trumpet: there was at once an uproar, and more than a thousand were
cut down. The Archbishop alone was sound. He said that, priest though
he was, if the matter were left to him, he would see that such things
should never occur again. The people understand the position, but are
obliged to acquiesce.' To Colet he exclaimed more bitterly: 'It is
cruel! The nobles care more for these ruffians than for their own
subjects. The fact is, they count on them to keep the people down.'
Let us be thankful that Europe to-day has no experience of such
mercenaries.
A sign of the troubles of the times was the existence of the French
order of Trinitarians for the redemption of prisoners. This need had
been known even when Rome's power was at its height, for Cicero[25]
specifies the redemption of men captured by pirates as one of the ways
in which the generously minded were wont to spend their money. The
practice lasted down continuously through the Middle Ages. Gaguin, the
historian of France, Erasmus' first patron in Paris, was for many
years General of the Trinitarians, and made a journey to Granada to
redeem prisoners who had been taken fighting against the Moors. Even
in the eighteenth century, church offertories in England were asked
and given to loose captives out of prison.
[25] _De Officiis_, 2. 16.
Where the king's peace is not kept and the king's writ does not run,
men learn to rely on themselves. Those who protect themselves with
strength, discover the efficacy of force, and soon are not content to
apply it merely on the defensive. It is not surprising, therefore, to
find in Erasmus' day many cases of resort to violence to remedy
defective titles. Nowadays we never hear of a defeated candidate for
a coveted post trying to obtain by force and right of possession the
position which has been given to another. It is unthinkable, for
instance, that a Warden of Merton duly elected should have to eject
from college some disappointed rival who had possessed himself of the
Warden's office and house: as actually happened in 1562. It is,
perhaps, not so much that we have become more law-abiding, as that we
realize that any such attempt must be fruitless when the strong arm of
the State is at hand, ready to assert the rights of the lawful
claimant.
In Erasmus' day might was often right. Thus in 1492 the Abbot of St.
Bertin's at St. Omer died, and the monks elected in his place a
certain James du Val, who was duly consecrated in July 1493. The
Bishop of Cambray, however, had had the abbey in his eye for his
younger brother Antony, who had been ejected ten years before by the
powerful family of Arenberg from the Abbey of St. Trond in Limburg,
and meanwhile had been living unemployed at Louvain. The Bishop
persuaded the Pope to annul du Val's election and appoint Antony in
his place, probably on some technical ground. Armed with this
permission he appeared at St. Omer in October 1493 and violently
installed his brother; who held the abbey undisturbed till his death
nearly forty years later. The Bishop's success with the Pope is the
more noteworthy, as for a period of seven years he himself had refused
to surrender an abbey near Mons to a papal nominee, who was not strong
enough to wrest it from him. Again, during the five years of the
English occupation of Tournay, 1513-18, there was a continual struggle
between two rival bishops, appointed when the see fell vacant in
1513--Wolsey nominated by Henry VIII and Louis Guillard by the Pope.
It goes without saying that Wolsey won; and Guillard did not get in
till 1519, the year after the evacuation by the English.
Fernand tells a story of violence at the monastery of Souillac, which
was closely connected with his own at Chezal-Benoît. When the Abbot
died, a monk of St. Martin's at Tours, who was a native of Souillac,
with the aid of a brother who was a court official, got himself put in
as abbot before the monks had time to elect. They appealed to the
king, but quite in vain; for instead of giving ear to their complaint
he sent down a troop of soldiers to support the invading Abbot. It was
a grievous time for the poor monks. The garrison did whatever they
pleased: imprisoned the faithful servants of the monastery, introduced
hunting-dogs and birds, roared out their licentious choruses to the
sound of lute and pipe, and gave up the whole day to games of every
sort, in which the weaker brethren joined. Those who refused to do so
or to violate their vows by eating flesh were insulted; and as they
held divine service, coarse laughter and clamour interrupted them.
Strict watch was kept upon them, too, lest they should speak or write
to any one of their injuries. We need not deplore the passing of such
'good old days'.
It is necessary to realize the certainty which in the sixteenth
century men allowed themselves to feel on subjects of the highest
importance; for nothing short of this intense conviction is adequate
to explain the ferocity with which they treated those over whom they
had triumphed in matters of religion. Burning at the stake was the
common method of expiation. The fires of Smithfield consumed brave,
humble victims, while Erasmus jested over the rising price of wood, In
France the Inquisition entrapped many men of literary distinction,
Louis de Berquin 1529, John de Caturce 1532, Stephen Dolet 1546; on
the charge of heresy or atheism which could only with great difficulty
be refuted. To kill a fellow-creature or to watch him put to death
would be physically impossible to most of us, in our unruffled lives;
where from year's-end to year's-end we hardly even hear a word spoken
in anger. In consequence it is difficult for us to understand the
indifference with which in the sixteenth century men of the most
advanced refinement regarded the sufferings of others. Between rival
combatants and claimants for thrones fierce measures are more
intelligible; especially in days when stone walls did not a prison
make--such a prison, at least, as the prisoner might not some day hope
to break. Things had improved somewhat since the Middle Ages. We hear
less of the varieties of mutilation, the blinding, loss of nose,
hands, breasts, which were the portion of either sex indiscriminately,
when the death-penalty had not been fully earned. But it was still
fashionable to suspend your adversary in a cage and torture him, or
to confine him for years in a dungeon which light and air could never
reach. The executions of heretics became public shows, carefully
arranged beforehand, and attended by rank and fashion; to whom to show
any sign of sensibility would have been disgrace. Impossible it seems
to believe. We must remember that the perpetrators of such noble acts
had persuaded themselves that they were serving God. They were as
confident as Joshua or as Jehu that they knew His will; and they had
no hesitation in carrying it out.
If you may take a man's life in God's name, there can be no objection
to telling him a lie. The violation of the safe-conduct which brought
Hus to Constance was a fine precedent for breaking faith with a
heretic. When Luther came to Worms to answer for himself before
Emperor and Diet, the Pope's representatives reminded Charles of the
principle which had lighted the fires at Constance and ridded the
world of a dangerous fellow. Fortunately Charles had German subjects
to consider, and the Germans had a reputation for good faith of which
they were proud. Let us credit him too with some generosity; he was
scarcely 21, and the young find the arguments of expediency difficult.
Anyway, Luther with the help of his friends got off safely. The
intrigues and subterfuges of diplomatists are still very often
revolting to honest men. But there is some excuse for them; they act
on behalf of nations, who have to look to themselves for protection
and can rarely afford to be generous and aboveboard. But so barefaced
a violation of faith to an individual before the eyes of the world
would no longer be tolerated, not even in the name of the Lord.
The following example will illustrate the ideas of the age about the
treatment of heretics; an example of faith continually broken and of
incredible cruelty. In 1545 the Cardinal de Tournon and Baron
d'Oppède, the first president of the Parliament of Aix, were moved to
extirpate that plague-spot of Southern France, the Vaudois communities
of Dauphiné, who went on still in their wickedness and heresy. The
intriguers prepared a decree revoking the letters patent of 1544,
which had suspended proceedings against the Vaudois; and when the
keeper of the seals refused to present it to the king for signature,
by unlawful means they presented it through a secretary and unlawfully
procured the affixion of the seals. But this was a mere trifle:
greater things were to follow.
On 13 April 1545 the Baron entered the Vaudois territory at the head
of a body of troops, reinforced by the papal Vice-legate and a
fanatical mob of countryfolk. The inhabitants offered little
resistance, and soon villages were in flames on every side. At
Mérindol the soldiers found only one inhabitant, a poor idiot; all the
rest had fled. The Baron ordered him to be shot. Above by the castle
some women were discovered hiding in a church; after indescribable
outrages they were thrown headlong from the rocks. Cabrières being
fortified was prepared to stand a siege; but on a promise of their
lives and property the inhabitants opened the gates. Without a
moment's hesitation the Baron gave orders to put them all to death.
The soldiers refused to break plighted faith; but the mob had no
scruples and the ghastly work began. 'A multitude of women and
children had fled to the church: the furious horde rushed headlong
among them and committed all the crimes of which hell could dream.
Other women had hidden themselves in a barn. The Baron caused them to
be shut up there and fire set to the four corners. A soldier rushed to
save them and opened the door, but the women were driven back into the
fire with blows of pikes. Twenty-five women had taken shelter in a
cavern at some distance from the town. The Vice-legate caused a great
fire to be lighted at the entrance: five years afterwards the bones of
the victims were found in the inmost recesses.'[26] La Coste had the
same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the
terrors of hell. In the course of a few weeks 3000 men and women were
massacred, 256 executed, and six or seven hundred sent to the galleys;
while children unnumbered were sold as slaves. The offence of these
poor people was that they had been seeking in their own fashion to
draw nearer to the God of Love.
[26] R.C. Christie, _Étienne Dolet_, ch. xxiv.
But public morals ever lag behind private; and in the sixteenth
century private standards of truth and honour were not so high as they
are now. Here again we may find one main cause in the absence of
personal security. In these days of settled government, when thought
and speech are free, it is scarcely possible to realize what men's
outlook upon life must have been when walls had ears and a man's foes
might be those of his own household. In Henry VII's reign England had
not had time to forget the Wars of the Roses, and claimants to the
throne were still occasionally executed in the Tower. Even under the
mighty hand of Henry VIII ministers rose and fell with alarming
rapidity. When princes contend, private men do well to hold their
peace; lest light utterances be brought up against them so soon as
Fortune's wheel has swung to the top those that were underneath. In
matters of faith, too, it was supremely necessary to be careful; for
unguarded words might arouse suspicions of heresy, to be followed by
the frightful penalties with which heresy was extirpated. On great
questions, therefore, men must have kept their tongues and thoughts in
a strict reserve: candour and openness, those valuable solvents of
social humours, can only have been practised by the unwise.
Truth is one of those things in which to him that hath shall be given.
It is a common jest in the East that professional witnesses come daily
to the law-courts waiting to be hired by either side. The harder truth
is to discover, with the less are men content. With many inducements
to dissimulation and no great expectations of personal honesty, men
are likely to traffic with expediency and to be adept in justifying
themselves when they forsake the truth.
Some examples of this may be found in Erasmus' letters. When he was
in Italy in 1509, Henry VII died. His English patron, Lord Mountjoy,
was intimate with Henry VIII. A few weeks after the accession a letter
from Mountjoy reached Erasmus, inviting him to return to England and
promising much in the young king's name. The letter was in fact
written by Ammonius, an Italian, who afterwards became Latin secretary
to the king. He was recognized as one of the best scholars of the day;
and there can be no doubt that the letter was his composition.
Mountjoy was a sufficiently keen scholar to sit up late at night over
his books, and to be chosen as a companion to the young Prince Henry
in his studies; but such autograph letters by him as survive show that
he wrote with difficulty even in English, and it is impossible to
suppose that he would have kept an accomplished Latinist in his employ
merely to act as copyist to his effusions. Moreover, Erasmus, writing
a few years later, says that he recognized the letter as Ammonius'
work, not from the handwriting, which he had forgotten, but from the
style. Nevertheless he allowed it to be published in 1519 as his
patron's. Of his connivance in the matter there is actual proof; for
in 1517 he had the letter copied by one of his servant-pupils into a
letter-book, and added the heading himself. What he first wrote was:
'Andreas Ammonius Erasmo Roterodamo S.D.,' but afterwards he scratched
out Ammonius' name and wrote in 'Guilhelmus Montioius'. In a sense, of
course, he was correct; for the letter was written in Mountjoy's name.
But he cannot have been unaware that in an age which valued elegant
Latinity so highly, his patron would be gratified by the ascription.
It was no great matter, and did no harm to any one. But it throws some
doubt on Erasmus' statement as to the scholarship of Henry VIII. When
Henry's book against Luther appeared in 1521, people said that Erasmus
had lent him a hand. In denying the insinuation Erasmus avers that
Henry was quite capable of doing the work himself, and adds that his
own suspicions of Henry's capacity had been dispelled by Mountjoy, who
when tutor to the young prince had preserved rough copies of Latin
letters written by Henry's own hand; and these he produced to convince
the doubter. Erasmus had a double motive in asserting Henry's
authorship, to play the courtier and to avoid provoking Luther; and
Mountjoy, as we have seen, is not above suspicion. But there is some
further evidence in support of them all, prince and patron and
scholar. Pace, Colet's successor at St. Paul's, speaks of hearing
Henry talk Latin quickly and readily; and Giustinian, the Venetian
ambassador, quotes a few remarks made to him by Henry in Latin by way
of greeting. Till more evidence is forthcoming, Erasmus must be let
off on this count with a Not proven.
Another example of scant regard for truth is his disowning of the
_Julius Exclusus_. This was a witty dialogue, in Erasmus' best style,
on the death of Pope Julius II. The Pope is shown arriving at the gate
of heaven, accompanied by his Genius, a sort of guardian angel, and
amazed to find it locked, with no preparation at all for his
reception. His amazement grows when St. Peter at length appears and
makes it plain that the gate is not going to be opened, and that there
is no room in heaven for Julius with his record of wars and other
unchristian deeds; whereupon there is a fine set-to, and each party
receives some hard knocks.
That Erasmus was its author there can be no doubt; for there is
evidence in two directions of the existence of a copy or copies of it
in his handwriting, and we cannot suppose that at that period of his
life, when he regularly had one or more servant-pupils in his employ,
he would have troubled to copy out with his own hand a work of that
length by another. There was nothing very outrageous in the dialogue,
nothing much more than there was in the _Moria_; but it was not the
sort of thing for a man to write who was so closely connected as
Erasmus was with the Papal see, and who wished to stand well with it
in the future. The _Julius_ appeared in print in 1517, of course
anonymously, and Erasmus was pleased with its reception; but he soon
found that people who were not in the secret were attributing it to
him. That would never do; so he set to work to repudiate it. The
friends that knew he exhorted to know nothing; the rest he endeavoured
to persuade that he was not the author, using many forms of
equivocation. He rises to his greatest heights in addressing
cardinals. To Campegio, then in London, he writes on 1 May 1519:
'How malicious some people are! Any scandalous book that comes
out they at once put down to me. That silly production, _Nemo_,
they said was mine; and people would have believed them, only
the author (Hutten) indignantly claimed it as his own. Then
those absurd Letters (of the Obscure Men): of course I was
thought to have had a hand in them. Finally, they began to say
that I was the author of this book of Luther; a person I have
hardly ever heard of, certainly I have not read his book. As
all these failed, they are trying to fasten on me an anonymous
dialogue which appears to make mock of Pope Julius. Five years
ago I glanced through it, I can hardly say I read it.
Afterwards I found a copy of it in Germany, under various
names. Some said it was by a Spaniard, name unknown; others
ascribed it to Faustus Andrelinus, others to Hieronymus Balbus.
For myself I do not quite know what to think. I have my
suspicions; but I haven't yet followed them up to my
satisfaction. Certainly whoever wrote it was very
foolish;'--that sentence was from his heart!--'but even more to
blame is the man who published it. To my surprise some people
attribute it to me, merely on the ground of style, when it is
nothing like my style, if I am any judge: though it would not
be very wonderful if others did write like me, seeing that my
books are in all men's hands. I am told that your Reverence is
inclined to doubt me: with a few minutes' conversation I am
sure I could dispel your suspicions. Let me assure you that
books of this kind written by others I have had suppressed: so
it is hardly likely that I should have published such a thing
myself, or ever wish to publish it.'
Not bad that, from the author of the _Julius_. A fortnight later he
wrote to Wolsey to much the same effect, instancing as books that had
been attributed to him Hutten's _Nemo_ and _Febris_, Mosellanus'
_Oratio de trium linguarum ratione_, Fisher's reply to Faber, and even
More's _Utopia_. As to the _Julius_ he says: 'Plenty of people here
will tell you how indignant I was some years ago when I found the book
being privately passed about. I glanced through it (I can hardly be
said to have read it); and I tried vigorously to get it suppressed.
This is the work of the enemies of good learning, to try and fasten
this book upon me.' Finally, to clinch his argument, he asseverates
with audacious ingenuity: 'I have never written a book, and I never
will, to which I will not affix my own name.'
Jortin points out that the only thing which Erasmus specifically
denies is the publication of the _Julius_. As we have seen, an author
of consequence in those days rarely troubled to correct his own
proof-sheets. Erasmus left his _Moria_ behind in Paris for Richard
Croke to see through the press; More committed his _Utopia_ to
Erasmus, who had it printed for him at Louvain; Linacre sent his
translations of Galen to Paris by the hands of Lupset, who supervised
the printing. It is therefore quite probable that Erasmus did not
personally superintend the publication of the _Julius_; but until
students of typography can tell us definitely which is the first
printed edition, and where it was printed, we cannot be certain. But
besides this point of practice born of convenience, there was another
born of modesty. With compositions that were purely literary--poems
and other creations of art and fancy, as opposed to more solid
productions--the convention arose of pretending that the publication
of them was due to the entreaties of friends, or even in some cases
that it had been carried out by ardent admirers without the author's
knowledge. Printing, with its ease of multiplication, had made
publication a far more definite act than it was in the days of
manuscripts. In the prefaces to his early compositions, Erasmus almost
always assumes this guise. More actually wrote to Warham and to
another friend that the _Utopia_ had been printed without his
knowledge. Of course this was not true, but nobody misunderstood him.
Dolet's _Orationes ad Tholosam_ appeared through the hand of a friend,
but with the most transparent figments.
There was, therefore, abundant precedent for denying authorship. But
there is a difference between the light veil of modesty and clouds of
dust raised in apprehension. The publication of the _Julius_ certainly
placed Erasmus in a dilemma; he extricated himself by equivocation,
which barely escapes from direct untruth. It is possible that a public
man of his position at the present day might find himself driven to a
similar method of escape from a similar indiscretion.[27] But
experience has taught men not to write lampoons which they dare not
avow, and a more effective law of copyright protects them against
publication by pirate printers.
[27] An example of this may be seen in the new _Life of Edward
Bulwer, First Lord Lytton_, 1913, ii. 71-6. Bulwer-Lytton's
letter, 15 March 1846, denying the authorship of the _New
Timon_, might almost have been translated from Erasmus' to
Campegio, except that it goes further in falsehood.